Republican Canvasser At Center Of Michigan Vote Count Said She Received Death Threats

The Republican chair of the board of canvassers in the Detroit area said she was the target of death threats after voting to certify election results.

Wayne County Board of Canvassers Chair Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, another Republican panel member from Wayne County, voted Tuesday against certifying the county-wide results from the Nov. 3 election. They later switched their votes on the condition that an independent audit was scheduled.

Palmer told the Detroit Free Press that she was later the target of death threats.

"The threats have been made against myself, my daughter and my husband," she said. "Reports have been filed with Grosse Pointe Woods police and the FBI."

Grosse Pointe Woods is a suburb of the greater Detroit metropolitan area, and both are located in Wayne County.

Ryan Jarvi, a spokesperson for the state attorney general, said the office has yet to receive any information from police on Palmer’s claim but would act accordingly if it did, according to the Free Press.

Palmer's claims come after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D-Mich., was the target of a kidnapping plot meant to overthrow the state government. Adam Fox, a west Michigan man accused of steering the plan, said Whitmer was a “tyrant” who overstepped her authority on lockdowns meant to control the spread of COVID-19. Many of the suspects in the case attended rallies against her orders at the state capital and were heavily armed.

Michigan is among the handful of states where President Donald Trump has contested the result. In 2016, he won Michigan by a slim margin, but in 2020 he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, who secured 50.6% of the vote compared to Trump’s 47.8%. President-elect Biden won Michigan by about 155,000 votes.

Both Palmer and Hartmann, meanwhile, are trying to rescind their “yes” votes, arguing they were misled on Tuesday.

Reporting by the Associated Press revealed that both Palmer and Hartmann received phone calls from Trump on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, they each signed an affidavit saying the vote in Wayne County “should not be certified.”

Trump has claimed, without providing evidence, that the election was "rigged." Speaking to the AP on Thursday, University of Kentucky law professor Joshua Douglas said Trump’s attempt to delay or otherwise interrupt the certification process is without precedent.

“It would be the end of democracy as we know it,” he said. “This is just not a thing that can happen.”

Michigan has until Monday to certify state-wide results. All of the state’s 83 counties certified the results on Wednesday.

“Their job is done and the next step in the process is for the Board of State Canvassers to meet and certify,” Tracy Wimmer, spokesperson for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, said of the counter canvassers.